Posted on 08/15/2006 5:19:13 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
With most of the Western world in denial, ignorance or some degree of acquiesence before the dream of islamic hegemony, it is at least encouraging that all of a sudden a discussion has arisen among those westerners not so afflicted, whether we should identify the ideology of our enemies as fascist.
It is encouraging because it might, perhaps, signal a sense that it is becoming more commonly acceptable in our societies to think of our enemies as not nice people. Maybe our reluctance to give offense is giving way, to some degree, to the foreboding that horrible suffering and death might actually await many of us, by those not nice people who daily threaten to inflict horrible suffering and death on us, and do inflict it on as many of us as they are currently capable of reaching.
The question remains whether "fascism" is really the word we ought to use, when we use it in the phrase "War on Islamo-fascism." There is no question that fascism and islam share a strikingly similar world view, and as much is assumed in the following words. Islam shares a striking world view with nazism, perhaps moreso than with fascism, and yet would it sound right to refer to "islamo-nazism"? Our enemies are true barbarians: should we call this war, the The War on Barbarism?
The problem with calling our enemy ideology "islamo-fascism" is that it is not fascism, it is islam. While there may be fascist equivalents of words such as dhimmi, hudna, taqqiyah and jihad, or fascist literature the equivalent of the koran, the hadith and the sira, that does not make islam, fascism. Each has a distinctive time and place in the history of mankind, and each a different cultural and philosophical context.
Adding fascism to "islamo" does not have the ring of truth to it. It sounds somewhat childish, like calling a police officer a "fascist pig." The use of the word "fascist" has a very sorry recent history of being used as a totally baseless pejorative, and it does not gain resonance regardless of how more accurately it might be applied to our enemy than to a cop.
And even the prefix "islamo" has that absurd ring of an awkward neologism, as with islamism. They sound like pipsqueak pejoratives, they do not quite ring true. They have the sound of phoniness and reaching too far. Does the word "homophobia" still grate on your ears? That's because it has the psuedo-serious echo of a nagging, hectoring made up verbal sledgehammer.
But the worst aspect of this leaden coinage is, it does not call the thing by what it calls itself and how it is known.
It is understood: there is a major difficulty involved. Even those who attribute the "root cause" of our enemy's barbarism to islam itself, are loathe to be so blunt, if only for prudential reasons. There remains the so far unrealized hope that some adherents will take a stand against the purported extremism of their co-religionists, that there might be a reformation of islam, if only we avoid at all costs the impression that we are trying to destroy their religion.
The problem is, you cannot fight this war without knowing about the love of death, the hatred of humanity, and the worship of mohammed, which comprises islam. The details of islam are critical, because the details lead to the understanding of motives and tactics. The knowledge of fascism is beside the point, or at least a distraction. Islam is quite big enough without trying to view it through the prism of what in comparison is a trivial historic era.
This has been a long war, between islam and humanity. The significance of the current phase, is that barbarism has just intersected with modern technology and the happenstance of vast oil wealth. The world has literally never faced anything like this before.
We are not fighting fascism. We are fighting jihad, the islamic war against humanity. The first battle in the current phase of islam's dedication to the destruction of us, is the struggle to get modern Westerners to grasp what they are facing. Jihad is doing its best to spin their war in such a way, as to keep most Westerners clueless. And it has not been a difficult job for them, given the predilections of most Westerners.
The first job in resisting jihad is to get the attention of Westerners, and the second is to focus them on exactly what they are facing. The first job is being done by jihad itself. Only jihad can do it apparently, sadly. The second job has to be done by Westerners who already know what we face.
That job is one of speaking clearly and with conviction, not obfuscating or using obscure historical metaphors.
This is a war on jihad, if we are willing to make war. It is a war of ideas, freedom, civilization and humanity, versus a religious belief that all shall die, and die horribly, who do not submit. Jihad is that religious belief. And the war on jihad ought to be the resolve of free men.
I guess one man's splitting hairs is another man's making critical distinctions.
The value of using the actual name of something to describe it, is that it is identical to the thing being described.
I agree that Jihadists is best. Or Ottomans, but there's no Turks, are there?
You copied something out a dictionary that has very little to do with Islamic Jihad but sounds like something very naughty indeed. Even the crude dictionary definition of fascism is enough to understand the jihadis are not fascists.
Yes, it fits. That is not the issue raised.
The issue is whether it is better than calling the thing itself by its own name.
So you say, I say they are islamofascists. (And copying and pasting is a good thing.)
I admit, I'm not handling "The Age of the Common Man" very well.
"Let's just be happy with Islamofascism. It suitably explains the problem."
Yes, I agree. Nicely put.
The earliest extant writing we have about mohammed's life was written 350 years after he died. It purports to refer to an earlier biography, written long after mohammed lived.
If the life of Christ were dependent on such historical sources, would anyone take it seriously?
But doesn't this demonstrate how important it is to focus on islam, and not on fascism?
See, this is what discourages me, just a little. Why should we be happy calling our enemy something other than what they are?
Isn't calling them fascists just an invitation to an irrelevant debate and worse, a failure to face up to reality?
What are we saying? That calling them fascists makes them sound worse than they are?
I believe calling them what they are is as bad as it gets. So why not just call them what they are? What is to be gained by calling them fascists?
So you say with a complete inability to justify or defend your choice of words. You typify the attitude of the New Dark Age in your belief your mere existence entitles you to meaningful opinion.
Bleary imprecision is not a virtue. The Cult of Mediocrity is as big a threat to Western Civilization as Islam.
But the West will have to suffer much more loss, something on the order of a major city with millions of people wiped out by a nuclear blast, before the West comes to the recognition that you have, and takes your advice, and puts it into action.
From George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946 It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because out thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.......................The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. .................. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.....
Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism?
A very wise reply. Thank you.
Mr. or Ms. AdamSelene235, we are going to have to agree to disagree. You are NOT going to change my mind on this issue.
P.S. I never liked George Orwell that much, anyway.
Wow, wow, wow. TYVM, AS.
So decades ago, Orwell thought the word "fascist" had lost its meaning except as a mindless pejorative? Wow.
Ahem. Sort of the point I was making (lol).
P.S. I never liked George Orwell that much, anyway.
I understand your discomfort with Orwell's belief that words have meaning.
P.S. His reputation will survive your disapproval.
The US currently resembles a fascist nation than the Islamic terror threat. Although we have elections, the outcome of the races is determined by who gets large corporate donations. Fascism doesn't require a dictator, but it could be reasonably defined as an oligarchy of elites sponsored by large corporate and business interests. We definitely meet the criteria for stringent economic controls and belligerent nationalism.
I have an entirely different point of view on the situation than most. What is taking place is three apostate religions that abandoned their prophetic roots are ruled by clerics who, in their histories, were empowered to interpret a book containing what they consider God's law. Both sides reject the principle that God is capable of revealing his will in modern times, considering that a heretical doctrine. As a result, rather than approach God and seek reconciliation in his will, they slavishly cling to their priestly worldviews and condemn each other to death for the blasphemies for which they accuse each other. Oddly enough, the one principle on which all three religions agree is that anyone who professes current revelation should be persecuted and oppressed.
Until Christians, Jews, and Muslims seek current revelation from the living God, they are doomed to continue in this path until God himself will overthrow their kingdoms and supplant it with his own. The current conflicts will escalate until the conditions will make the vineyard ripe for the final harvest.
P.S.S. - Good. I was real concerned about that. Now I can sleep tonight.
I used the phrase islamofascism when SeeBS News called me over the weekend for a poll they were doing. I was 1 of only 924 polled, lol. (that's a tiny # to me, but what do I know?)
I used islamofascism, I said that was our greatest threat, that they were trying to destroy not only America, but all of western civ, and why yes, I do consider myself a born-again or evangelical Chirstian. Then I answered some of the limited choice questions in ways just to P.O. the poller, as he was calling from NY (I'm in GA) and I will bet dollars to donuts he was a lib.
That's ok, I'll bet he thought I was an uneduacated yokel, lol.
Oh yeah, I also mentioned we should be doing profiling more in airports etc, since most of the attacks in the past decade have been by Mulsim Arabs.
I said some other stuff too just to "scratch my nails on the blackboard", but I can't remember now. Hubby was sitting there LOLing, I'm surprised the poll taker didn't hang up on me.
But I was glad to get islamofascism in there.
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